But there was one old lady who was entirely unaware of her hovering fellows. She would park her large basket firmly in front of a shelf, then spend a very long time pondering over each item on it. The ancient hand would creep towards the Chevre, then remove itself, then return, as if carrying on an internal dialog on how salutary the cheese would prove, entirely separate from the animating consciousness. She was parked there for two separate trips to return items that had been judged (after reaching the opposite side of the store) as unnecessary. The atmosphere of "Do you mind?"s and "Could I just reach here?"s was troubling her as little as it had when I dove after the feta.
I told myself to be charitable, that she probably would have liked to be aware of the people around her, but was simply too fuzzy to do so. God knows how often I've been in the same spot. But then her very nice old husband came over and she hit him between the eyes with a fishwife tirade. The subject that really brought the poison out was how he was standing in the way of the other shoppers. She told him in minute detail (but not very coherently) where he ought to be, and as far as I could tell, she'd lit on the worst place. I suppose that just went to show that he was so inept that he could stand in the perfect spot and still get in the way.
So at some level she had known. But the possibility of the weakness finding its source within her own self had been too painful to be supported. I walked away wondering how much my own darting about had inconvenienced the other shoppers.
